Brij Bhardwaj
It will be a most polarised election in Bihar irrespective of who wins. A battle royale has started between NDA and the opposition group led by the old war horse Lalu Prasad Yadav, former Chief Minister of Bihar and former Railway Minister at the Center. He has also been convicted on charges of corruption in the past and is being tried in a few more cases. On behalf of the NDA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is personally leading the charge.
Bihar is important for the BJP as it is the only major Hindi speaking state where it has never come to power on its own. It always had to align with Janata Dal (United) led by Nitish Kumar to get a majority in the State Assembly. State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is popularly known as Paltu Ram, is known for changing courses mid-stream as long as he remains in office as Chief Minister.
Both BJP and RJD have won the same number of seats in the State Assembly in the past and Janata Dal has emerged as the third largest party and a majority has been made by joining hands with them. RJD has an alliance with Congress and left parties which bring them close but not enough to hit the majority mark. In recent years, Nitish Kumar, who was at one time known as an able administrator, has lost some ground. His ability to get some votes from minority communities is also on decline. His old schemes like providing cycles for girl students and prohibition, which got him votes from women, also are not working anymore.
For BJP Prime Minister Modi remains a big vote catcher as according to the polls carried out by newspapers over fifty per cent of voters are satisfied with his governance at the Center while the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has approval of 30 per cent only. This is however balanced by the fact that Tejaswi Yadav, the opposition candidate for Chief Minister, is a favourite with 37 per cent voters while Nitish Kumar is approved of by 17 percent of voters only.
In addition, RJD has increased its following among minorities by declaring that it will not implement the Waqf Act enacted by the Union Government. The Waqf Act, which at present is under challenge in the Supreme Court, is a big issue for the Muslim community. The Waqf card played by the RJD leader has made the coming poll a polarised one. BJP leaders are calling Tejeswi Yadav a maulana who is accepting it by stating that it means he is scholar and well read.
Another factor which may influence the outcome of polls is revision of electoral rolls by house to house checking. So far, polls were being held on the basis of electoral rolls prepared in 2003. The opposition parties are opposed to this and argue time is too short to undertake such an exercise. They have appealed to the Election Commission against it and also threatened to seek legal remedy in case the Election Commission fails to give them relief.
This is one issue on which all constituents of the INDIA opposition alliance are united, as they feel the same may be done in coming State elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. This may also become a hot subject in the coming Monsoon session of Parliament.
There is, however, no doubt that the Bihar poll will be polarised or otherwise will witness a close contest. Both RJD and BJP will be main players but there will be many more on the sidelines. For instance, the NDA has decided to field Chirag Paswan, a Union Minister whose party in the last Assembly poll had not won many seats but has polled votes which damaged other parties, particularly JDU. In the opposition camp, the performance of the Congress Party was poor as it was not able to win many seats.
Yet another player on the scene is Pran Kishore who is credited with having planned election strategy for many political parties in the past. For a long time he has been trying to build a base for himself in his home state. He has been well received but one wonders how many seats he may win in a state where the poll is expected to be polarised and the majority vote on the basis of caste alignment. The campaign by both groups has been started in earnest by all and the Bihar poll will continue to hit headlines in the next few months.
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